I’m sure you’ve heard several variations of this quote over the years: “To understand another person's experience, walk a mile in their shoes.”
When it comes to the role of a travel advisor, though, you may need to walk five, ten or maybe even 20 miles to understand the full scope of the job. It’s a unique career that can only be mastered with enough time and experience. No one can simply take a training course and call themselves a travel advisor. Well, technically they can, but it doesn’t mean they’re an expert.
Advisors are constantly evolving and keeping up with the changes to stay relevant and knowledgeable for their clients. Since it takes one to know one, it’s common for travel advisors to take matters into their own hands by creating helpful apps, educational content and other businesses specifically designed with the travel advisor in mind.
While there are several companies created by advisors for advisors, we’ve compiled 10 of them for you to check out here.
Explore More Mexico
Lori Gold, the founder of Explore More Mexico, has planned travel for 16 years, and she has been living in the Mexican Caribbean for more than half of this time. Over the years, she’s made it her mission to discover every nook and cranny of this destination and share her knowledge with the travel advisor community. From touring popular resorts and doing excursions to discovering off-the-beaten-path locations, Gold has transitioned from travel advisor to dedicated educator to empower advisors with this information.
There are several ways for advisors to learn from Gold. They can book a private consultation with her, join the Mexperts program (which includes more than 50 webinars, social media content, resort tours and imagery and so much more), sign up for masterclasses (some of which include Tulum, Everything Xcaret, Beach Basics and EP hotel roundup) or join her private Facebook group called The Resorts of the Riviera Maya, which currently has more than 25k members.
Learn more: exploremoremexico.com
My Fam Trip
All too often, travel advisors return home from a FAM trip thinking they’re going to be able to identify all their photos and notes, only to realize they can’t quite recall which room category a certain photo is or which resort their notes should be connected to. After attending a chaotic FAM trip, two travel professionals, Rochelle Zemke and Stephanie Everhart Cavelli, realized a need for organization and founded My Fam Trip.
This resource allows advisors to conveniently track their FAM trips, whether it’s a site inspection, cruise or guided tour, and store all their details in one place. They can then access this information later on when they’re working with clients on choosing the perfect vacation. Additional features of this tool include auto-generated FAM reports to keep for themselves or share with clients, on-the-go marketing, auto-watermarked photos and more.
Learn more: myfamtrip.com
Assistants That Work
Mary Beth Lynn, like many travel advisors, found herself working more than 50 hours a week and soon realized she needed to make a change. She took a leap of faith, and this change came in the form of hiring a virtual assistant. With the right systems and processes in place, she was able to hire an assistant and not only reduce her work hours to an average of 20 per week but also achieve a 200% year-over-year growth in her business.
This success led her to create Assistants That Work, and this approach focuses on “creating efficient, systematized processes that empower both the business owner and their assistants, fostering an environment of growth, efficiency, and balance,” according to the website. Lynn has helped thousands of people grow their businesses while simultaneously maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
Learn more: assistantsthatwork.com
Travel Pro Summit
Before joining the travel industry, Tiffany Elberfeld spent 15 years as an educator. After transitioning to running a full-time travel business, she felt called to merge these two roles. She combined her passions for teaching and travel entrepreneurship to create The Travel Pro Summit.
This virtual event series focuses on one aspect of the role of a travel advisor each time it runs. For example, Elberfeld has hosted Travel Pro Summit: Client Experience Edition and Travel Pro Summit: Marketing Edition. During these events, over the course of a few days, advisors hear from 20+ travel industry professionals through interactive sessions, live panels, networking opportunities and breakout chats. Advisors can visit the website to join the waitlist and hear details for the next event.
Learn more: travelprosummit.com
Magic Made Simple
With a goal of eliminating the word hustle from the travel industry, two agency owners, Penny Cooper and Christina Vieira, created Magic Made Simple. The two realized the power of email automation and set out to help overwhelmed travel advisors stay consistent when it comes to connecting with their clientele, all while opening up valuable time to spend on other areas of the job.
Magic Made Simple provides travel advisors with written-for-you email templates to allow travel advisors to not only become more efficient in their email strategy but also deepen the connection they have with their clients. The content available supports advisors with both attracting new prospects and retaining current clients. Not sure where to start? Advisors can begin by booking a 30-minute private coaching session.
Learn more: magicmadesimple.net
Mexico FamTrips
FAM Trips are an excellent way for advisors to learn about new destinations and products. Lori Swinderman, an agency owner living in Mexico, founded Mexico FamTrips in order to help travel professionals become immersed in all the destination has to offer. Her team uses their years of experience to craft unique FAMs throughout the destination.
In addition to touring resorts, the company focuses on helping advisors discover the culture of Mexico, create and strengthen industry relationships and learn best practices in topics like social media and technology. Advisors can also explore Caribbean destinations through its sister program, Caribbean FamTrips, or become a Fam Insider, which includes FamTrip credits, discounts, trainings, access to an exclusive Facebook group and more.
Learn more: mexicofamtrips.com
The Hive
Her name might sound familiar from the podcast Masters in Travel, which she co-hosts with Brianna Glenn, but Whitney Shindelar wears many other hats outside of this. In addition to owning a travel agency and running a podcast, she also founded The Hive, a hub for travel advisors to gather insights, review vendors and connect with other advisors.
The platform allows advisors to search for travel suppliers from a robust database of brands around the world, share their valuable experiences with others using the platform, save notes from their own travels and collaborate with other travel advisors in order to learn from each other — and all this can be done conveniently in one place.
Learn more: thehive.travel
Cultural Passport
Before becoming a travel advisor, Amarilis Correa spent 15 years as a marketing and advertising executive overseeing large companies’ lead generation, email marketing and loyalty campaigns. When Correa carried the strategies she learned in this role over to the travel industry, she saw immediate success, and she now helps other advisors find this success through her Cultural Passport emails.
These customizable cultural emails offer a unique combination of curated content and personalization, and they help advisors showcase their expertise of a destination and set their clients up for a culturally immersive trip. Each packet includes a handful of emails highlighting important aspects of a destination such as the food, language, religion, etiquette, history and more. New advisors and seasoned pros can benefit from using Cultural Passport emails.
Learn more: taculturalpassport.com
Solstice Collective
In 2019, Jane Linsea and Kate Barnes established Solstice Collective, a website design company. Linsea is a travel agency owner herself and not only knows how busy advisors are but also understands their unique needs. Having an online presence is crucial to the success of a travel agency, and Solstice Collective aims to help provide this while freeing up time for advisors to focus on other aspects of the role.
The company helps small business owners thrive online by offering expert website design, templates and social media management. Looking to get up and running with an online presence but don’t have a lot of time and effort to put into it? Solstice Collective has a “website in a day” service, where advisors can choose from a range of website templates and have it adapted to fit their business — all in one day.
Learn more: solstice-collective.com
TASK
Keynote speaker, business strategist, world travel expert, author, TV travel correspondent — Tammy Levent wears many hats, all while also running a travel agency. In order to give back and help other travel advisors, she created The Travel Agent’s Success Kit ™, or TASK, which includes TASK 24K, TASK Prep, TASK Live and TASK Ambassador Program.
Through live events, training programs, video series, consulting and more, Levent helps travel advisors grow their business in all areas. She also has a handful of free resources for advisors to utilize, covering topics like building a business from scratch, legal mistakes to avoid, choosing an agency name and more. These resources, along with more information about the various TASK programs, can be found on the TASK website.
Learn more: travelagentsuccesskit.com
Originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of The Compass magazine
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